2 December 2006Life is beautiful.

I have this beatific sense of beatificalness lately. In spite of all the frenzy of papers and tests and skipping lots of Spanish, I have this inner buoyancy that I haven’t had in many weeks. I think I know why, too, and I wish I could tell you all about it, but it relates to sensitive information. I just wanted to share my feelings of deep and abiding joy with everyone. At least, the words that palely attempt to signify my deep and abiding joy–though I think that when one has spent enough of one's life among words, the words almost take on their own significance, almost become more significant than things themselves. If you watch the world through a window long enough, then when you go outside it all seems terribly alien and surreal.

Random philosophizing aside, I’m super-pumped about Christmas. It’s my favorite time of year (I know, I know; I’m so unoriginal. But my goal in life is to be jaded and intellectual, not necessarily original). I love what Christmas stands for–or rather, what it’s supposed to stand for. And I don’t mean Jesus. Jesus and Christmas stand for similar things, but in the back of my mind Jesus has never really been the meaning of Christmas. This is probably due to my growing up in a secular humanist society and always being drawn to the more broad, accepting messages that I was offered (in a similar vein, stay tuned for a later post about how YA sci-fi made me who I am now).

Christmas means magic. Christmas means giving change to Salvation Army workers on your way out of Wal Mart. It means watching cheezy holiday movies and eating fudge and singing carrols out of tune and generally being a little happier than usual to be human. It means Silent Night in the middle of World War I and picking out perfect presents for people you love. It means being allowed to be cheezy and have warm fuzzy feelings all the time, just because 'tis the season.

On that note, I am now being kicked out of MOil, so be sure and tip your local barrista.